


I'll Be Homo For Christmas

by Amuly



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, Bottom Richie Tozier, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Smut, Closeted Character, Condoms, Counter Sex, Crying, Crying Richie Tozier, First Time Blow Jobs, Homophobic Language, M/M, Top Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: Bill divorces Audra and decides to move in with his buddy, Richie Tozier. Thing is, Richie recently came out as gay, and that's perfectly fine, of course, there's nothing wrong with that. Eddie doesn't have a problem with it, not at all. He's proud of his best bud for coming out and living his truth and whatever.He just wishes people would stop thinking Bill and Richie aredating.Eddie's not homophobic, really! But Bill's not gay. So maybe Richie could cool it on the jokes about Bill being his boyfriend.Not that there's anythingwrongwith that...Or, tl;dr: "Plot twist: it turns out I don’t have any problem with Richie kissing guys if it’s me he’s kissing."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 178
Kudos: 1840





	I'll Be Homo For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> All the credit to [stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy) for the title. She's a mad genius, I tell you.

_Eddie swallowed thickly. He saw the desperate plea in Richie’s eyes, and he… he couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t his to fix._

_“I’m glad you told me, Richie,” Eddie said. He pressed a hand to Richie’s shoulder, shaking him gently. Richie’s eyes were already sliding sadly away. Shit, shit._

_“Yeah, whatever. Anyway. Smell you later…”_

_Eddie grabbed Richie and pulled him into a hug, refusing to let him board the plane without physical confirmation of Eddie’s love for him—even if it couldn’t be the kind of love Richie wanted from him. After all, Eddie was married. After all, Eddie was straight._

* * *

It was Thanksgiving and Eddie should be helping with dinner but Myra had kicked him out of the kitchen. So instead he was standing at their kitchen bar, thumbing through his phone and waiting for Myra’s instructions. His phone beeped with a message from the Losers group chat. It was a picture of Richie planting a big, wet kiss on Bill’s cheek, text beneath it reading _just moved in!!! we’re registered @ bed bath and beyond plz send gifts ASAP._

Eddie huffed a laugh at his phone, already tapping out a sarcastic reply.

“What are you laughing at, Eddie-bear?”

Eddie shoved his phone in his pocket, smile feeling weird on his face. Like it was stretched wrong. “Huh? Nothing.”

That turned into a fight. It _always_ turned into a fight.

Later that night, sitting on the toilet lid, Eddie caught up on the group chat and rubbed at his chest. He was smiling, he was smiling. He was happy Richie had Bill living with him, as Bill went through his rough divorce with Audra. Those two hams were yucking it up together, taking all sorts of stupid domestic selfies.

Bill had taken a selfie of himself with Richie carrying him across the threshold. Haha. Too funny. Those guys were a real hoot.

Eddie flushed an empty toilet and splashed water on his face. He had a stomachache. He glanced back at the toilet. Well, at least he was in the right place. Eddie sighed and pressed his hands to either side of sink and stared into the mirror. His eyes looked old. The scar on his cheek was still pink, stitches only just removed last month. His mouth was drawn down into a hard line. Why was his mouth so angry?

Eddie pushed off from the sink and headed back into his and Myra’s bedroom.

* * *

Eddie was starting to seriously question his own internalized homophobia.

He hadn’t _thought_ he was homophobic. He and Myra had plenty of gay friends (you couldn’t be white collar yuppies in Manhattan without knowing some uptown gays). He never thought he had a problem with it.

Except then Richie started _posting_.

Just stupid shit, mostly with Bill. It wasn’t even _real_. Eddie knew Bill wasn’t gay and him and Richie were just fucking around ‘for the ‘gram!’ But the more posts Eddie scrolled past on Richie’s Instagram—

_Bill in the kitchen swatting at Richie with a spatula._

_Richie and Bill at the pound, Richie rating dogs on adoptability, Richie begging Bill to adopt a dog with him._

_Richie in the morning with bedhead, smiling blearily into the camera as Bill…_

Well. Eddie couldn’t even remember what stupid thing Bill was supposed to be doing in the background of that photo because his eyes couldn’t get past Richie’s bedhead and shirtless torso, chest hairs creeping up towards his collarbones and the little dip at the base of his throat.

Eddie hadn’t thought he was homophobic. But he must have some unresolved issues with it, because he got a stomachache every time he looked at that photo of Richie. Eddie popped a Tums and resolved to talk about it with his therapist.

* * *

They were having pajama parties now. Eddie clutched his phone and sat on the toilet in his own master bathroom as Myra snored in the next room. Richie and Bill were live streaming some sort of… _pajama party_?? Richie was answering questions about being out and gay and his new Netflix special and what it was like to be the big gay hero of modern stand-up comedy or whatever. And he was doing it all lying around in sweatpants that rode too low on his hips because the elastic was all busted on them, and a shirt that was two sizes too small for him and had a hole in the armpit. His stomach—not flat, clearly shitty eating as a road comedian hadn’t treated him as well as Eddie’s carefully curated all-organic lifestyle—poked out from the bottom of his shirt, hair leading a clear trail down.

Bev was watching the livestream too, apparently. Her name had floated up from the bottom of the screen when she logged in. Eddie switched over to his messages and texted her: _What the hell are those two idiots doing?_

He was back watching the livestream when she texted him back: _Uh being adorable? What?_

_What so Richie’s gay now so everything he does is gay?_ Eddie typed. Then he stopped and stared at the message. Homophobia, that was _definitely_ homophobia. Eddie sighed and deleted the message, trying to get a grip on his feelings about it. Was it _really_ that Richie was going whole hog into this gay lifestyle shit, or was it that Bill was going along with it? Maybe it was because Bill _wasn’t_ gay, and so it kind of felt like lying, to Eddie? Not that he really had a problem with lying—a lifetime with his mother and now Myra had forced him to get intimately cozy with lying.

Then what the hell was it? His therapist didn’t think he was a homophobe, though had suggested maybe he had some unresolved feelings of jealousy towards Bill and Richie’s newfound closeness. After all, it had always been _Eddie_ and Richie, not _Bill_ and Richie. Or Richie and Stan, but that was more as they got older and Richie, on occasion, found himself capable of a serious moment in between all the bullshit.

Actually, now that Eddie thought about it… No, but Stan was happily married. Him and Richie hadn’t had a thing in high school. Had they?

He thought about shooting off a quick text to Stan but then tamped that urge down. _That_ was definitely homophobia, right? Thinking every intimate relationship Richie had with another man had to be a romantic one? Yeah, it totally was. Richie was allowed to be gay and have intimate relationships with other men without it being romantic. After all, he was best friends with Eddie for like, a decade, and _they_ weren’t boyfriends. So Richie and Stan’s relationship, and of course, Richie and _Bill’s_ relationship, didn’t have to have any gay undertones to it.

“Is this my _boyfriend_?” Richie read from the livestream feed, voice squeaking high on the last word. Bill giggled, lounging on the bed and waiting for him to answer. Richie wrinkled up his face in that exact way that Eddie _knew_, he could feel that expression under his _ribs_, from a childhood of being on the other end of it.

Eddie felt something else under his ribs, now, in response to seeing that expression directed at someone else. It was all wrong.

“Bill Denbrough? Yeah fucking right. Have you seen the way this guy writes endings? Can’t imagine what he’s like in bed. You’re getting to the good stuff, you think you’re about to come, and then, _wham_, suddenly you’re fucking your own grandmother? And it’s not like there were any _hints_ of that in the first two acts, like, Bill: you heard of Chekov’s gun? You mind introducing it during foreplay or something? Because that’d really help me at least get some satisfaction if you’re gonna fuck me out of blowing my load, you know?”

Bill scoffed _dramatically_, hand to his chest, wounded deeply. Then he grabbed a pillow and whacked Richie in the face with it.

Eddie grimaced. He should have said something biting back, like “At least my books _have_ an ending. When was the last time you ‘finished’ with anyone other than your right hand?” but Bill wasn’t quick like that. He hadn’t spent years honing his witty comeback muscles playing angry straight man to the Richie Tozier double-act. That’s probably why writing worked out for him: he could take all the time he wanted to come up with comebacks.

They’d devolved into a full-on pillow fight, like a couple of giggling girls. Eddie grimaced and gripped the phone tight in one fist, eyes darting across the screen as he followed Richie’s laughing, sweaty face. His shirt rucked up too-high, chest hair everywhere. Eddie was waiting for those sweatpants to fall right off his hips and Richie to get banned from Instagram for a week for distributing pornography. Before he could help himself, Eddie typed:

_You’re going to flash us and get your account suspended, you idiot_.

The mentions lit _up_. Mostly people begging for it to happen, please Richie Tozier, show us your hairy pale ass! Eddie scoffed at the outpouring of dirty fantasies. For Richie? Richie _Tozier_? The kid that had held him down and farted in his face when Eddie found out what pink eye was and wouldn’t stop lecturing them about it for a week straight? _That_ gross man-child, with the badly-covered receding hairline and coke bottle glasses which, seriously dude: LASIK. It existed.

(He probably had astigmatism. You couldn’t get LASIK with astigmatism. Eddie’s fingers itched to look over Richie’s ophthalmological charts, but that was just Eddie’s very special pathology speaking.)

Richie grabbed at his phone again, panting heavily underneath a throw pillow (why did he have throw pillows? Eddie didn’t think him the type. Maybe Bill had added them? But they were in _Richie_’s bedroom. Surely Bill wasn’t making interior decorating decisions in _Richie’s bedroom_?? _Surely_?! Something under Eddie’s chest howled louder). His face twisted up unusually as he stared at the outpouring of horny comments begging him to flash his entire Instagram feed.

“Okay, who the hell started this?” Richie said, laughing. “I basically only know how to use Instagram, you’re not getting me to switch over to the Chat-of-Snaps, I’m not fucking Chrissy Tiegan over here…” he was scrolling up the comment feed.

Eddie panicked. His username was @eddie.kaspbrak. Fucking _hell_! What if this ended up on… on TMZ in the morning, or something! Myra would see it! Was there a way to delete his comment? Eddie started racing Richie, scrolling up the comment feed.

Of course there was no way to delete his stupid comment, now that it was out in the wild. And of _course_ Richie clocked it, which was obvious when his entire face lit up and he looked up to stare directly into the camera, eyes wider than humanely possible behind those ridiculous glasses.

“_Eddie, love of my life_!”

Eddie groaned and leaned forward on the toilet, head between his knees. He was fucked.

“Listen, gorgeous: I know you’re thirsting after my D—as the kids are saying these days-”

“_No one’s saying that,_” Eddie hissed. “_You didn’t know how to use slang when _we_ were kids, you ancient asshole_.”

“-I promise you, Bill isn’t my forever, he’s just my right-now!”

“Hey!” Bill called out from where he was lounging in a pile of pillows against the headboard.

Richie waved him off. “You know you’re just a meal-ticket for me, Denbrough.”

Bill flipped him off, which again: wasn’t how you responded to Richie! You said something like “and you’re just a roof over my head though the company is making it not even worth that,” or something. Anything more than just the double-bird, come on, Bill.

“If you’re jealous that you’re missing out on all the fun, Eds, then you just gotta make time to get your miniature ass out here,” Richie told the camera.

Eddie shut off the livestream and put his head in his hands. He told himself it was to prevent Richie saying anything worse about him, so Myra wouldn’t catch his name on TMZ and blood thirsty paparazzi hounding him when he tried to go to work in the morning.

It definitely wasn’t because he was _jealous_. Of Bill, and his shitty divorce? Of having to move in with _Richie Tozier_, of all fucking people, in his forties? Yeah, right. There wasn’t anything to be jealous of, there. Eddie scrubbed his hands over his hair, pushing his forehead back and forth, ignoring his mother’s voice in his head _That’s how you get wrinkles!_ He loved his friends. He _missed_ his friends. Richie might have gotten something right, incidentally: Eddie_ did_ need to make more time for them. Visit them. Mike had been around to visit everyone at least once already. Eddie should figure out a way to do the same. The holiday season _was_ in full swing, now. Macy’s parade had soundly ushered it in last week. Maybe…

A particularly piercing snore cut through the bathroom door. Eddie glanced at it. He just had to figure out a way around… well. His whole life.

* * *

Richie had a show and Bill had been to it like four times, of course. Eddie was _so fucking sick_ of hearing about Richie’s show from _Bill_. And Bill kept _sending them clips_.

“So the real irony here, right, is that the straight guy moves in with me, big ol’ gay, and he’s _way_ neater than me, fucking hell. Like, apparently you can _clean_ grout? Did you know this? _I _didn’t know this. I didn’t even know you needed to clean your shower, I mean, what? All it does is get wet with soap, all day every day—okay, maybe not _every_ day, which yeah, is _another_ thing the Straights are trying to teach me—so it’s _basically_ getting cleaned every time you use it, right? Right? Yeah, okay, I hear you booing, yeah, apparently _not_.”

Eddie picked compulsively at his work slacks, watching the clip on his phone behind his computer. Did Bill know the right brands to buy, though? Did he just scrub it with scrubbing bubbles or whatever or did he know the baking soda and vinegar trick? Did he have a grout brush? Bill had been married to a B-list actress: they probably had _people_ do their shower-cleaning for them. There was no way Bill could scrub a shower like Eddie could.

It wasn’t like Eddie was a professional comedian or anything, but it felt like there was something _missing_ from Richie’s jokes. Like, he was trying to go into this odd-couple set-

“-so my token straight is trying to teach me how to cook, right? Problem is, he was a married man and his wife was an actress. So _neither_ of them knew how to cook. Now me, as you can tell by my Grecian-ideal physique here, am an expert at take-out menus. So Big Bill acts like he’s coming in to teach me how to cook, except-”

-except, it was _missing_ something. Bill and Richie weren’t enough of opposites for it to land. People were still laughing, because Richie was a funny guy and his delivery was impeccable, even if his material wasn’t, but it could be better.

Eddie opened up his private chat with Richie.

_Bill’s a shit resource for material_.

_fuck u, dickhead! howre u even seeing my shit?_

Eddie grinned to himself as he typed. _Boyfriend betrayed you._

_fucker. im kicking him out tmrw._

_You should have known better to try and get good material from a guy who can’t finish his own books._

_not the only thing he cant finish EEYEYEYYYYY_

_Sick burn_

_thnx u_

Eddie put his phone away and got back to work. Only for it to buzz angrily at him over and over again not ten minutes later.

_well?_

_whatd u think?_

_hey, asswipe! _

_whatd u think of the act?_

_hey_

_hey_

_hey_

_hey_

_Fucking hell, Richie, shut the fuck up!_

_hey_

_hey _

_hey_

_You know some of us actually work, right? I’m at work right now._

_then mute ur phone, eddie spaghetti_

Eddie didn’t give Richie the dignity of a reply. He held out until his commute home, or, more technically, until he was sitting in his car in the parking garage (no texting while driving, talk about a big risk).

_Send me tickets when you’re done refining it_.

Not seconds later Richie replied back:

_promises, promises_

Eddie smirked down at his phone. Then he made sure his lock screen notifications were turned off before tucking it away for the commute home.

* * *

“Eddie, isn’t that your friend? The _gay_ one?”

Eddie slapped his hand over his eyes and dragged it down, hard, ignoring a disapproving look from Myra. It was some awards show—one of the million that Myra loved to watch. Or was it a red-carpet premier? Richie had mentioned some voice-over work for a kid’s movie, or something. And there Richie was.

With fucking _Bill_ as his red carpet date.

“Don’t rub your forehead, sweetie, you’ll get wrinkles.”

“I’m forty years old; I already have wrinkles,” Eddie mumbled. “Yeah. That’s the guy I group up with. Uh, both of them, actually.”

Myra tsked loudly. “It’s a wonder they didn’t get. _You_ know. It was the _eighties,_ after all. They’re lucky. Unless, do you think…”

“They don’t have fu-… They don’t have AIDS, Myra,” Eddie sighed. “Bill’s not even gay.”

“Are you sure?” Myra nodded at the TV. “They look _awfully_ cozy.”

And, yeah. Richie had his arm wrapped around Bill’s shoulder and was saying something in his ear, and Bill was laughing with _tears_ in his eyes, because of course he was, Richie was funny as shit, how could anyone help themselves under a full-frontal assault of Richie Tozier charm? Eddie never could, as much as he tried. He’d argue and bitch and moan but end up giggling like an idiot in the end, because that was how Richie was. Impossibly charismatic in the worst, most infuriating possible way. He was perfect for Hollywood.

But Bill wasn’t _gay_. Just Richie. Apparently. These days.

Eddie winced and tried to explain it to Myra. “That’s just how Richie is. He’s… handsy.” _And charming._

“I hope you never let him get that handsy with you…” Myra mused. “I mean, you never know-”

Eddie made an excuse and locked himself in his bathroom again—he should really invest in one of those fuzzy toilet seats so at least he could be comfortable hiding out in here. But it was the only place he could be safe from Myra’s incessant nagging—most of the time. She was starting to think he’d developed Crohn’s disease or something, and her thinking he had it was actually starting to convince him maybe he had it? Most foods disagreed with him after all. But, no: that was his mom talking. Right? Oh, hell.

Eddie clutched his phone and searched for more footage of Bill and Richie goofing around on the red carpet. There wasn’t much, because more important stars were already showing up. Eddie sent a text to the group chat:

_Myra thinks you’re gay, Bill_.

Neither Richie nor Bill read the message for a while, but Bev replied:

_When are we going to meet Myra? Losers Christmas?_

Eddie shoved his phone away. No need to deal with that right now.

* * *

On the other end of the line, Bev giggled loudly, staticky sound over the phone feeling like it was loud enough that Myra would hear from where she was posted up in the living room, watching her shows.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Eddie stifled his laughter into his sleeve, holding the magazine with his other hand.

“It’s fucking ridiculous,” he whispered over the phone. “Everyone thinks him and Bill are fucking!”

“Yeah, it’s because of that interview Audra gave. Did you read that?”

Did he _read_ that? Eddie clutched the folder of magazine clippings and full, torn-out pages of interviews he’d been amassing chronicling Bill and Richie’s torrid gay romance.

He was going to make, like, a gag Christmas gift or something, with all the clippings. For Richie. Or Bill. Maybe photocopy it and make one for all the Losers. It’d be a real hoot. That was the plan. That’s why he’d been obsessively collecting clippings ever since Bill started showing up on red carpets with Richie.

The project wasn’t exactly working out the way he’d wanted, of course. He hadn’t figured out how to display it all, or bought the right scrapbooking shit just yet. More often than not he just found himself sitting in the bathroom, obsessively going over clippings as he bitched to Bev or, more often than not, himself.

“_Yes of course I read the interview_,” Eddie hissed, pulling out the exact interview from his Gay-Comedian-Richie-Tozier-Coming-Out-in-a-Big-Way folder.

_Did Comedian Richie Tozier come out of the closet so he could be with childhood sweetheart Bill Denbrough?_

_Audra Phillips tells all in our exclusive interview._

_Phillips: I never had any reason to suspect anything when we were together. But then, we were wrapping shooting on _The Dark_, and suddenly Bill gets called away to his childhood hometown in Maine. Some sort of impromptu reunion thing—maybe one of the friends had a problem? Someone died, actually, I think? Well, it sounded that way, but then he came back and I asked him about it and no one had died, so maybe I got those wires crossed. Anyway, when he comes back he asks me for a divorce. Then, he moves in with Richie, one of the guys who he met up with at the reunion. It can’t all be a coincidence. I think something happened—reunion, they reconnect, one thing leads to another… I guess I’m grateful he was up front with me as much as he was._

_But Bill has never admitted to being gay?_

_Phillips: Oh, no, no way. I mean, I can’t see it, except for the fact that I see it every damned day on the red carpet. You know at our movie premier I basically had to crowbar them apart? But yeah, he hasn’t said he’s gay, but Richie has, and I mean, have you _seen_ them? They’re living together, for- …goodness’ sake._

It went on like that. It was all just ridiculous speculation, and in_accurate_ speculation at that. Bill wasn’t gay! Not that it would matter if he was, of course. It was a laugh-riot, of course. The Losers had been teasing Bill and Richie _relentlessly_ about it.

But on the other hand, Eddie wondered if all this was really what was best for Richie. <strike>He</strike> must want to date, now that he was out. It’d be pretty hard to do that if everyone thought you were in a relationship. And Richie should get to date. If he wanted to. Everyone deserved someone.

On the other end of the line, Bev giggled. “We’ve got it framed on the _fridge_, it’s so juicy.”

“You don’t frame shit on your fridge you hang it on your fridge you frame it on a wall.”

“Ex_-cuse_ me.”

“Eddie? Eddie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Myra!” Eddie howled. He hung up and shot Bev a text.

_Had to go, sorry. Talk later._

_Was that Myra?_

Eddie pointedly refused to reply. 

They needed another bathroom. So Myra could take her baths and Eddie could sit in the other one and talk to his friends.

That definitely wasn’t a psychotic thought to have about the woman you were married to, right? Adding rooms to your apartment just so you could spend more time away from her? Definitely the sign of a healthy marriage, right?

“You know the Pepto is under the sink-”

“I know where the Pepto is, Myra!”

“There’s some Imodium in there, too-”

“I know, Myra!”

“I think I should make you a doctor’s appointment…”

“Don’t make me a doctor’s appointment, I’m just using the bathroom! I feel fine!”

“You’re going to get dehydrated if you keep it up like this, and that could lead-”

“I’m not going to get dehydrated-”

“I’ll get you a Pedialyte from the corner store-”

“Don’t get me a Pedialyte, I’m not a sick toddler-”

Eddie stared down at the glossy photo clutched in his hands. Richie and Bill, just out shopping at the grocery store, Richie obviously saying something deviously wicked and Bill’s head thrown back in laughter, both hands wrapped around his own chest.

Feeling something hollow in his chest, Eddie texted Richie.

_Losers holiday reunion. What’s happening with it?_

Myra had stomped away before Eddie’s phone lit up with an incoming call from Richie, thank fuck. Eddie grabbed a towel and stuffed it under the door before he answered.

“Hey, Richie.” Eddie spoke as low as he could without coming off psychotic.

“Eddie, my boy. What up?”

“Nothing. Just… looking forward to another Loser’s reunion. Got a pair of socks I need to return to Ben. Stuff like that.”

“Bullshit. Ben’s feet are twice the size of yours, small-fry. And you’d never borrow socks anyway.”

“My feet are _normal sized_, you asshole!” Eddie hissed.

“Me thinketh the lady doth protest too much.”

“_You’re_ the fucking lady,” Eddie shot back.

“Ouch, hey, just because I willingly take it up the ass- Actually, okay, point…”

Eddie giggled into his hand. “I think that’s homophobic.”

“Eh, _I _can say it. _You _can’t say it, _I _can say it.”

“Okay, you big Nancy.”

“Ah, see! Homophobia, right there! I’m wounded, Eddie. _Wounded_.”

Eddie grinned into his phone, cradling it against his ear with both hands. This was what he needed. This was _all_ he needed: Richie making stupid jokes into his ear, and Eddie trying to give him shit.

After a moment of quiet giggling shared between them, and a long stretch of comfortable silence, Richie piped up: “I miss you guys, too.”

_Not as much as I miss you_. “At least you’ve got Bill,” Eddie said instead, even though the fact made him feel… something. Jealous, maybe. Lonely, mostly.

“We’ll mount a rescue for you, Eddie. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m no damsel.”

“You are to me, handsome.”

Eddie snorted, basking in the glow of Richie’s affection.

Then, in the background of Richie’s phone: “Hey, Richie? Did you get milk?”

“Fuck, sorry!” Richie shouted, voice somewhat distant as he pulled the phone away from his mouth. “I forgot!”

“I’ll get some, I needed bananas anyway. Need anything else?”

Eddie’s mouth twisted up sadly. He held his phone in his lap, waiting for the performance of domestic bliss to come to a damn close.

Finally, two minutes of grocery lists back and forth later (not that Eddie was timing it or anything), Richie turned his attention back to Eddie.

“Sorry about that. So-”

“Yeah, I gotta go,” Eddie hurriedly explained.

Richie spluttered a little on the other end of the line. “Oh, uh. You-”

“See you, Richie.”

Eddie hung up. And then he pressed his phone to his forehead, breathing hard. He’d just wanted to hear Richie’s voice. And it’d been good, it’d felt good, for a while there. Until it hadn’t, anymore.

Eddie flushed the toilet for show, then washed his hands for show. He pulled the towel from under the door and placed it in the hamper, before he found himself standing in front of the bathroom door for a long, long time before he could work up the fortitude to open it.

* * *

Myra was out for the evening with her girlfriends—a rare, blessed occasion—so Eddie found himself Skyping Bev from the comfort of his California King mattress. It felt… weird, and a little dirty? To Skype a woman who wasn’t your wife from your marital bed. But it wasn’t like Eddie had any designs on Bev, not in a million years. He loved her, of course: the same way he loved all of the Losers. Just like he loved Mike and Stan and Ben and… Bill, most the time. And Richie. Myra wasn’t competing with Bev.

Well. Not in _that_ way.

Eddie rubbed his forehead as Bev smoked out on Ben’s patio, sunset brilliant behind her. She looked like a damned fire goddess or something, hair alight, embers trapped between her fingers, sky aflame. It was almost enough to make Eddie forget his troubles. Almost.

“Alright, so far we’ve got Mike, Richie, and Bill in for Losers Christmas. What’s the verdict with you?”

“I wasn’t saying we _had_ to do something. I was just wondering what everyone’s holiday plans for. If maybe we could squeeze in a reunion, you know, between everything…”

“Ben and I are going to host,” Bev agreed. She sucked on her cigarette for a long moment. “So do you want to leave Myra?”

“Sshhhhh…” Eddie hissed, glancing around.

“She’s not home.”

“I know, I just…”

Bev waited. Then:

“Eddie.”

“Listen, I never said that. _You_ said that-”

“What are you and Myra doing for Christmas?”

Eddie hesitated. For exactly too long. Bev nodded and pulled out her phone. “Yeah, okay. I’m sending you my divorce attorney’s contact card. She’s _amazing_-”

“I’m… I never said…”

“Eddie. You hide in the bathroom to talk to your friends. You started making Christmas plans with Richie before you did with your wife.”

“But Myra isn’t like…” Eddie stopped himself, wincing. But Bev caught on.

“Just because she doesn’t hit you doesn’t mean you should stay married to her, Eddie. Take it from me.”

Eddie ran both hands over his face, steepling his fingers together over his mouth. Wrinkles, don’t give yourself wrinkles…

“Eddie.”

Eddie looked up. Bev was looking right at him.

“You know the answer, Eddie.”

Yeah. Yeah, he knew the answer.

_You’re braver than you think_.

He laughed self-deprecatingly.

“Oh come on, Bev. I’m not as brave as you.”

“You _are_ brave, Eddie,” Bev reassured him. “You killed that fucking clown.”

Yeah. Yeah. He’d killed that fucking clown.

Oh, God.

He was going to have to leave his wife.

Eddie glanced up at his computer camera. “Don’t tell Richie.”

“Won’t breathe a word,” Bev promised him. “Now. Have you looked at the flights for Christmas yet?”

* * *

The Losers had vastly different jobs and time off and travel arrangements and financial abilities, so Christmas ended up being a staggered-arrival affair. Mike was able to get up whenever he wanted, so he showed up a week early, while Bill and Richie were flying separately out from LA—Richie was getting in first, on the twenty-first, and Bill two days later, on the twenty-third. Stan and Patricia could easily take the week off, so they did, and arrived the same day as Richie, on the twenty-first.

Eddie had about a hundred years of vacation days saved up, so he could arrive whenever he wanted.

So he arrived on the twenty-first, because that’s when Richie was arriving.

That made sense, right?

This meant, of course, days of food and drinking and plans to make, and Bev and Ben refused to cook more than one day themselves before Christmas because really, guys, come on.

It was Patty and Stan who revealed they’d had fondue essentials shipped to the house, and so, on the twenty-second, it was fondue night.

Eddie settled uneasily next to Richie, eyeing the pot of bubbling cheese.

“I’m fucking lactose intolerant, I can’t eat this,” he grumbled.

“Then just eat your bread,” Richie told him. He grabbed a piece of bread and dunked it, with his _hands_, into the cheese, getting it _way_ too soaked before plopping the ungodly mess into his mouth. He’d never looked more disgusting. Eddie gritted his teeth.

“Well if I take two lactaid pills I can have a few bites…” Eddie mumbled, thinking to himself.

“You’re not even allergic, your mom just convinced you you were.”

“I actually am,” Eddie insisted. He stood up to grab some lactaid pills from his toiletry bag. “If I had that without pills I’d shit my pants, you fucking know this about me,” he called back over his shoulder.

“You ate ice cream when we were kids!” Richie shouted at his retreating back.

“People develop lactose intolerance as they age!” Eddie shouted back.

When Eddie returned he shoved Richie with his shoulder, causing him to drop a hunk of bread in the cheese. Eddie grabbed a fondue stick and slapped it down into his open palm.

“Eat with utensils you animal,” Eddie scolded him.

Patty clapped gaily. “Party foul! Richie, kiss Eddie.”

“Wait, wha-” Eddie protested, before finding a fat, cheese-smelling, Richie kiss pressed to his cheek. Eddie spluttered and wiped at his face. “What was that?!”

“Richie dropped the bread into the cheese,” Patty explained. Stan smiled at her, watching the proceedings as he munched contentedly on a piece of bread. “French Canadian rules: drop the bread in the pot, you have to kiss your neighbor.”

“He could have kissed Ben!” Eddie pointed out, since Ben was sitting to Richie’s left at the head of the table.

“What, you don’t want me to kiss you, Eds?” Richie asked. He speared his dropped bread and ate it off the end of his fondue fork like a fucking heathen. “Thought you were working on that homophobia of yours?”

Eddie glared at him. “That’s not homophobia, that’s just me not wanting to get your rotten cheese slobber all over my face.”

Richie put his chin in his hands and fluttered his eyelashes at Eddie. “You always speak so sweet to me.”

“That’s my love language alright, ‘words of affirmation,’” Eddie joked. But he was smiling, and when he snuck a glance at Richie, Richie was smiling too.

Then the doorbell rang.

_Bill_ had caught an earlier flight. _Bill_ wanted to surprise them all. Richie jumped up and pressed a stinky cheese-breath kiss to _Bill’s_ cheek and had _Bill_ squeeze in on Richie’s other side.

Eddie thought he was going to strangle Bill right there.

When Bill dropped a piece of bread into the pot, Stan laughed and told him about “French Canadian Rules.” Eddie tried to kick Stan under the table but just ended up clocking Bev, who stared at him like he was fucking crazy, which, okay? So? Maybe he was! But that was Eddie, right: he was the crazy one! So maybe everyone could just shut up and mind their business and let him wallow in his insanity for a bit, alright?

Bill laughed and grabbed Richie, giving him a big old smooch on his cheek.

Eddie started skewering his pieces of bread recklessly. It wasn’t that he was _trying_ to have them fall off, it’s just… if they _did_, then Richie was the only one on Eddie’s side of the table, so then… whatever, it would be like, Eddie could get back at him, you know? That’s what it came down to.

Eddie must have _incredible_ fondue dunking technique because not a single piece of bread fell off his fork the entire night. Eddie growled and ate piece after piece of cheese-drenched bread, heedless of the imminent problem such a plethora of lactose would pose to his system.

It turned out, it wasn’t just his mother who thought Eddie was lactose intolerant. His stomach definitely agreed with her.

Eddie recused himself to the guest bathroom, out-of-the-way towards the back of the house, so he could be alone with the shameful results of his hubris. He should have never thought he could get away with eating a fucking _pot_ of cheese on two lactaid pills. He should have never let him get dragged into a fondue eating competition with Bill.

_Knock knock_. Eddie jerked on the toilet, grabbing for toilet paper.

“Occupied!”

Richie’s voice floated through the door: “Yeah, you muppet: I know you’re in here. I wanted to make sure you didn’t fall in.”

Eddie sighed and pressed his head into his hands. His stomach gave a warning rumble. Round four, or maybe it was five, was about to begin. Fucking hell.

“I’m fine!” he called out to Richie, sweat beading his upper lip. “Just… I’ll be out a minute!” Fat fucking chance, he was going to be stuck on this toilet until midnight tonight, when his intestines finally finished expelling every ounce of cheese from his system, along with anything else he’d eaten or drank for the past week.

“Guess you’re really lactose intolerant, huh?”

Eddie groaned and held his stomach. Fuck, fuck.

“Can you please leave so you don’t have to hear this?”

There was a light _thunk_ against the door, and then a soft sliding noise. Eddie groaned.

“Richie?”

“I can’t hear you shitting, Eddie. Promise.”

That was… mildly reassuring, at least.

“Sorry I got you into this,” Richie said, after Eddie let his body do… all the terrible things it wanted to do, for a couple minutes.

Eddie blotted at his face with a wad of (clean) toilet paper.

“Yeah, well. My fault. I knew this would happen. I should have just had a couple bites. Or had another lactaid pill after half an hour. Or…” _Or never met you, Richie Tozier: every bad decision of my life._ Eddie chuckled softly at himself.

“I kinda goaded you into it.”

“No you didn’t,” Eddie insisted.

Richie was quiet for a minute, and Eddie took the time to flush once, even though he definitely wasn’t done yet. Richie stood up and his footsteps retreated for a minute (if Eddie could hear his footsteps that well, surely Richie could hear… everything that was happening in the bathroom, couldn’t he?). Eddie was still stuck on the toilet when the footsteps returned, and Richie rapped lightly on the door.

“Hey, Eds? I got some Pepto out of Bev’s medicine cabinet.”

Eddie groaned. Pepto sounded fucking _great_ right around now. Steeling himself, Eddie hobbled over to the door and unlocked it. Richie pushed the Pepto through the crack before Eddie shut and locked the door firmly once more.

“Thanks,” Eddie croaked. He popped the cap and guzzled directly from the bottle. He’d probably spend the rest of the holiday constipated, but whatever. Better than being stuck on the toilet. At least if he was constipated he could keep an eye on Richie. And Bill. And what the _fuck_ exactly was Eddie’s _problem_ with Bill? They were never like this, he never felt this weird, irrational… _something_, about Bill, ever before in his life. Just since he moved in with Richie, which Eddie still couldn’t figure out what his major malfunction was over this. It couldn’t just be homophobia… right?

“Sorry I was such an idiot,” Eddie sighed. “Just like me, to ruin the holiday.”

“Trust me, Eds: nobody’s holiday is ruined. Everyone is playing Cards Against Humanity—Patty is destroying everyone, by the way—and they just want you to have a good time.”

“Well isn’t it for the best that I’m not there? You’re all perfectly paired up in teams of two. Ben and Bev, Stan and Pat-”

“If you say me and Bill I’m gonna use the kiddie emergency lock pick on this door and come inside and watch you shit, Eddie, because that’s what you deserve for fixating on this, like you’re not my best friend and I’m not yours. For fuck’s sake, Card’s Against Humanity isn’t even a team game.”

It could be. But Eddie was way more focused on the horrifying threat Richie had just made to say anything about that. Not to mention…

“I thought Stan was your best friend.”

“He’s my best friend for bitching about my other best friend to. And that first best friend is you, you dingus.”

Eddie pouted quietly.

“_You’re_ a dingus,” he finally mumbled.

“I heard that,” Richie called back.

“Fuck, you can hear everything in here, please, go away?”

“I’m on my phone buying you ‘Everybody Poops’ off Amazon Prime right now, it’s going to be under the tree in time for Christmas.”

“Don’t make the Amazon workers go through last minute holiday rush for a fucking gag gift, Richie.”

“No, I seriously think you need this, because you’re acting like you haven’t internalized the singular thesis of this picture book for un-potty-trained toddlers,” Richie sniped back.

“You’re the worst best friend ever,” Eddie groaned.

“Love you too, buddy.”

Eddie sighed, ass sticky sweatily to the toilet seat. He shifted miserably.

“Ugh. Yeah. Love you, Richie. Now, please: let me shit my colon out in peace?”

* * *

Everyone else had scattered to their various air mattresses and guest bedrooms, including Bill, who was exhausted from flying all day. Everyone except Richie and Eddie, who were sitting cross-legged in Ben’s “home office” and playing Mario Kart on the flat screen.

“Hey, so… I don’t want to make a thing about this…” Eddie started. Abruptly he wished he’d had this conversation earlier that evening, when he’d been in the bathroom and Richie had been on the other side of the door. He’d been shitting his brains out, but there was something oddly comforting about the bathroom that made it easier to have these Big Topic conversations.

“What?” Richie finally prompted, eyes focused on the screen. His tongue was poking out the side of his mouth as he concentrated—which he barely needed to, the bastard absolutely _trounced_ Eddie at Mario Kart, because he was a fucking forty-year-old man child.

“I’m not telling everybody yet—I’ve just told Bev, barely. But Myra and I are separated.”

Richie’s fingers jerked and his kart went tumbling into the ocean. He blinked and turned to face Eddie.

“Oh. Shit, Eddie…”

“I’m going to lap you, loser. Get your eyes back on the game.”

Richie took the hint—more of an order, really—and picked up his controller. But his heart clearly wasn’t in the race anymore.

“That’s huge, dude,” Richie finally said, once he was playing again.

“I mean… It is what it is. Whatever.” Eddie focused on trying to follow Richie’s path through the caves, some sort of shortcut up top, maybe? “Long time coming.”

“Still.” Richie had dropped bananas all through the shortcut path, of course. Eddie swore softly as the third one caught him. “That took a lot of guts, Eddie.”

“Should have done it ten years ago,” Eddie mumbled. Louder: “Doesn’t feel like it, when I only did it because I had you.”

Richie’s fingers clattered over the controller, regaining control just barely in time to scrape by the finish line. He tossed the controller to the side to stare fully at Eddie.

“What?”

“Because I had all of you telling me it was bad,” Eddie explained further. That apparently wasn’t the right answer, or maybe it exactly was, because Richie’s semi-panicked expression smoothed out into something more understanding.

“Well, geeze. Happy we could help, I guess.”

“Don’t pull a muscle patting yourself on your back; it was mostly thanks to Bev,” Eddie told him. Richie made a noise of dismay, but he was more focused on _destroying_ Eddie in Luigi’s Mansion—or someone’s mansion, Eddie was pretty sure it was Luigi’s—so he didn’t say anything else.

Three levels later and Eddie thought his eyes were going to drop out of his head if he played another level. But he kept playing them because Richie just. Couldn’t. _Lose_. There had to be a way to beat him, just once, the smug bastard. But even the blue shell wasn’t enough to defeat him. Eddie was going to have to get creative.

* * *

Stan stared at the ceiling, listening to Mike snore gently from the air mattress Bev and Ben had crammed up against the wall of their guest room.

Shouting and loud thumps erupted in the next room before returning to a dull buzz of conversation and TV. The mattress dipped next to him, before Patty rolled blearily against his side.

“Still awake?” Patty mumbled out the question.

“I can’t believe they’re still playing video games and not… you know. Kissing, or something,” Stan muttered. Patty shifted, waking up some more.

“You don’t know how Eddie feels,” Patty cautioned him. It was an old argument. “You only know how Richie feels.”

“According to Bev, Eddie has been one bad day away from flying cross-country to murder Bill in his sleep ever since he moved in with Richie. I take that as clear confirmation of Eddie’s predilections, even if Eddie and Richie are too thick-headed to realize it.”

Patty nuzzled at his side and Stan automatically reached for her hand as she settled it on his chest.

“I still don’t understand why Richie doesn’t believe you.”

“Because Richie’s been stuck in a self-loathing spiral for thirty years,” Stan explained for the dozenth time. “He can never believe Eddie’s into him, even if Eddie was mounting him on the kitchen island.”

Patty giggled. “I’d pay to see that.”

“Do _not_ give them any ideas; I want to be able to keep this gentile dinner down,” Stan threatened. “And Eddie doesn’t know he’s into Richie, as far as I can tell. So they’re stuck.”

“You could give them a _nudge_…” Patty suggested.

“It’s not _my_ responsibility.”

“Well, if you ever want Richie to stop calling you at two am crying over Eddie…”

“Like that would _stop_ if they got together? I’d put good money on it getting even _worse_. And I don’t gamble.”

“I know you don’t, dear.” Patty patted his chest.

A thump, a scream. Stan sighed, running his thumb over the back of Patty’s hand. Three, two, one…

The door to the guest room flew open.

“Stan!” Richie’s voice screeched. Stan sighed as he and Patty pushed themselves upright against the headboard. Stan glanced over to Mike, who snored steadily on. Lucky bastard.

“You realize it’s the middle of the night,” Stan said.

Eddie burst in behind Richie, waving a finger. “Bullshit, it’s three am, that’s _well_ past the middle of the night.”

Richie nodded firmly. “That’s right!”

They high-fived.

Stan was going to kill both of them.

“_What_ do you want?” Stan prompted.

“Right!” Richie jumped forward, finger wagging. “We need you to adjudicate a controversial MarioKart maneuver!”

Kill them, or kill himself. Either option was sounding _great_ right now, to Stan.

“Specifically: is licking the other player’s controller cheating?” Richie asked.

Stan stared at the two of them. Then he looked specifically at Richie.

“Did you do it?”

“No!” Richie howled. “Shocker of shockers, it was _fucking Eddie_! Also: how _dare_ you think that of me!”

“What the fuck it wasn’t me!” Eddie shouted. Then he shoved something into Richie’s palm. Richie held it out: it was fucking pocket mouthwash. “Now disinfect your mouth you fucking _heathen_.”

“I know how you can disinfect my mouth, Eds,” Richie leered.

“Guys,” Stan pleaded. “It’s three am. Patty and I are trying to sleep.”

“It’s vacation, you can sleep all day,” Richie pointed out.

“I’d like to sleep all night,” Stan shot back.

“Okay, look, we just need you to adjudicate this, and then we’ll leave you in peace,” Eddie explained.

“‘Adjudicate.’” Richie snickered.

“Fuck you, it’s the appropriate word.”

“Fuck me and maybe I’ll agree.”

Eddie gritted his teeth and screamed very quietly. After that small break in his sanity he shook his head and turned back to Stan.

“Is licking the opposing player’s controller cheating?”

“And before you answer,” Richie cut in. “Consider: there is no _rule_ against it.”

“That’s not a fucking defense!”

“Yes it is!” Richie crowed. “As seen in the case of The Stiffs versus Air Bud, nineteen ninety-seven, the courts have _officially_ ruled that if there isn’t a rule about it, then it isn’t against the rules!”

“That’s insane, you can’t-”

Stan held up a hand. The only thing to do was make a ruling. Otherwise they’d stand there, flirt-arguing in his doorway (well, Bev and Ben’s guest room doorway) for the next hour.

“I rule in favor of Richie. Air Bud rules apply.”

Richie jumped, pumping his fists in the air. Eddie dropped his hands and his jaw as one, aghast.

“_What_?! But-”

“That’s my ruling, and it is final. Now: get the fuck out so Patty and I can sleep. And before you wake Mike.”

Richie and Eddie glanced over as one unit to stare at Mike, who was still snoring soundly from the air mattress. Stan was bitterly jealous of him.

Patty waved at them. “Sorry, Eddie!”

“Fucking bullshit-” Eddie grumbled. Richie slung his arm across Eddie’s shoulders.

“Don’t be mad, Eddie my love. You never stood a chance anyway.”

“Make a rule against it,” Stan called after them. Eddie flipped him off.

After the door closed behind them, Stan and Patty sat in the dark of the guest room, staring at the ceiling together. After a few minutes Patty whispered:

“Still sure you don’t want to give them a nudge?"

* * *

They were sitting around day-drinking Ben’s homemade mulled cider and watching increasingly terrible Christmas movies. Eddie had picked a wing chair off to the side for himself, that he could basically curl up entirely in. He had his cider, a throw-blanket over him, and was basically as cozy as Christmas vacation could be.

When Richie strolled in, sleep-mussed and ridiculous looking, shirt lifted just enough to show a peak of hairy tummy as he scratched at himself, Eddie’s good mood only increased. Richie kinda smiled over at him before settling onto the unoccupied loveseat. Eddie caught himself smiling back, too long, as he let warmth kind of just… unfurl in his chest. Richie had a mug in his hands—either coffee or cider, Eddie wasn’t sure which he’d picked to start—and Eddie’s brain kinda short-circuited into a fantasy where he had handed Richie that mug. Or Richie handed him one in return. Maybe Richie came into the living room with two mugs and crossed over to Eddie’s chair, taking his empty mug and pressing the fresh, hot one into his hands. He’d lean down, and to thank him, Eddie…

“What’re we watching?” Bill asked, entering the living room. He looked equally as sleep-mused as Richie, but it wasn’t charming on him. Eddie glared.

“Looks like… _Year Without a Santa Claus_,” Richie pointed out. He giggled and tilted his head up to look at Bill. “You know, I always thought Heat Miser and Cold Miser were pretty gay.”

“They can’t be gay, they’re half-brothers,” Eddie pointed out sharply. Richie dropped his head to meet Eddie’s eyes. That was better (why was that better? Was Eddie going quietly insane?).

“I didn’t say they were gay with each other,” Richie pointed out. “You can have two gay people in a group without them fucking each other.”

Eddie snorted. “Not how you meant it.”

“Don’t tell me how I meant it,” Richie replied.

“I _know_ how you fucking meant it, you were being gross.”

Richie jumped up from the loveseat, just as Bill had been lowering himself down into it. “So now just them being gay is ‘gross?’”

Eddie rubbed his forehead. “That’s… that’s not how I… because they’re _brothers_.”

“Just because they’re both gay doesn’t mean they’re fucking!” Richie shouted.

“Well yeah, obviously!” Eddie shouted back.

What the hell did he mean by that?

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Richie prodded.

“Nothing?” Eddie waved one hand in the air, nearly forgetting his mostly-empty mug of cider in his distress. “I dunno?”

“Well there’s only one fag in our group-”

Eddie winced. “Richie, c’mon…”

“So we can’t really put that to the test, can we?”

Bill had winced with Eddie at the slur, and he raised his hand like he was trying to be called on in class. “Richie, man. Sit down-”

“Shut up, Bill!” Eddie shouted.

Bill held his hands up. “Hey, I was just trying to help-”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Well stop helping, for ten seconds, Bill. Richie doesn’t need your help! You’re not even gay!”

Ben untangled himself from Bev and the blanket they’d been sharing, stepping between Richie and Eddie.

“Hey, Eddie, look, why don’t you cool off-”

“What the fuck does _that_ mean?!” Richie asked, gesturing around spastically.

“I just…” _He just what?_ Eddie asked himself. Even he didn’t know!

“Well, they’re gods. Or at least demi-gods.”

Everyone turned around to see Patty standing in the back of the room, holding a mug of coffee. She took a sip, waiting.

“What?” Richie asked, while Eddie just kind of made a high-pitched noise in his throat.

“The Miser brothers. They’re demi-gods. It’s not uncommon in various mythologies for half, or even whole, siblings to have sexual relations. Or parents to have relations with their offspring.”

Patty took another long sip of her coffee.

The room erupted into chaos, debating the sexual history of the Miser brothers. But at least it wasn’t just Richie and Eddie, and Eddie wasn’t… screaming like a fucking maniac at Richie, for no fucking reason.

Eddie beat an unsubtle retreat to the kitchen, where he dumped the rest of his cider into the sink and rinsed out his mug. He had to get a handle on himself, or he was going to ruin Christmas.

* * *

Ben held up the wishbone, smiling awkwardly.

“Okay so… tradition in my house, was you save the Thanksgiving wishbone for Christmas. And whoever the youngest in the house were got to break it. But since we’re all-”

“I’m the youngest!” Richie pointed out, hand shooting up.

“Your birthday is one fucking day after mine,” Eddie shot back.

“Well then that makes you second-youngest.” Richie smiled sarcastically-sweet.

Ben hesitated. “Oh, uh… So I was going to suggest drawing straws for the privilege, since we’re all the same age…”

To Eddie’s great surprise, it was Stan that spoke up. “No, that works. Let Eddie and Richie have it. I’m fine with it, at least.” He looked around at the other Losers.

Patty quickly piped up next to him. “Me too! Richie and Eddie should have it.”

The rest of the Losers shrugged and agreed. Eddie glared at Richie.

“Okay. But we have to set some ground rules. Index finger and thumb-”

“Oh, Eddie. I thought we didn’t talk about that sort of thing in front of polite company.”

“Bottom of the bone,” Eddie continued, ignoring him.

“Damn gay.”

Eddie screamed, in his mind.

“And all other body parts are off limits.”

Richie squinted at him, considering. He started to smile and Eddie shook his head sharply.

“I’m not done. That also means all fluids herein contained within the body. That means no interference by kicking, hitting, licking, but also no interference by spitting, peeing-”

The Losers had slowly started to back away, widening the loose semi-circle they’d formed around the two of them.

“And no talking,” Eddie concluded.

Richie squeaked: “_What_?!”

“That’s right. Complete silence. I’m not having you make me fucking laugh and fucking up my chance with the wishbone.”

Richie scooted closer. “So you think I could make you laugh.”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie grumbled. He held out a hand. “Give me a second, I’m trying to think if I’m missing anything…”

“Me, from your life,” Richie cooed. Eddie ignored him, mentally ticking off all the possible scenarios of Richie interreference he could think of.

Ben stood staring between them, holding the wishbone. “Guys. It takes like, three seconds.”

“Oh, and we’ll do one, two, three, shoot,” Eddie remembered. “No pulling before.”

“_Alright_,” Richie sighed. He crowded in on Eddie, looking down at him. “You take all the fun out of it.”

Eddie’s heart pounded in his chest. Had he forgotten something? Richie always made him feel unprepared. Chaotic. Like something was going to come up he hadn’t planned on. It’s why he…

Eddie stared up at Richie’s face, glasses reflecting the kitchen overhead lights, smile that soft, genuine thing he only brought out on rare occasions, and even then only for the Losers.

And even then, this one: this was Ed’s smile. This was the one Richie brought out just for him.

Ben was handing them the wishbone, and Eddie was grasping it with two fingers, but he was still staring up at Richie’s smile.

Ben was doing the officiating:

“Okay, clean break, guys. One…”

Eddie loved Richie. He was his best friend.

“…Two…”

Richie was gay. Richie had come out, and that hadn’t changed things, for Eddie. But then Bill had moved in. And that had changed something.

“…Three…”

Eddie had divorced his wife. Eddie had never wanted her. Not as his whole self: just as the person he was with the most important memories and people stripped from him. Eddie as half a person had been content with Myra, or had thought he was. But full Eddie, the Eddie who’d grown up with Richie Tozier, who loved him as a boy and as the mess of the man he had become: that Eddie couldn’t love Myra. Could never want her.

Not like he wanted Richie.

Eddie dropped the wishbone and grabbed Richie’s face to pull him in for a searing kiss.

“Uh… isn’t that cheating?” Eddie distantly heard Ben say. But he was busy kissing Richie’s mouth, and Richie’s mouth was kissing him _back_, and _opening_, and then he was sucking on Richie Tozier’s tongue.

And that was a lot, but it was also exactly what Eddie wanted right now, and for every second of his life moving forward.

Richie broke the kiss, but his hands were in Eddie’s hair, eyes wide and frantic.

“Hey this isn’t just you cheating to win at the wishbone right?”

“No-” Eddie started to reassure him, but apparently that’s all Richie needed to hear.

“Oh thank fuck.” Because then he was diving in and attacking Eddie’s mouth some more, and fuck, yes, that’s exactly what Eddie wanted.

Oh. He’d been _jealous_ of Bill. Because he was _gay_ for Richie.

Eddie decided to keep it to himself when exactly he figured that out because “_after_ I started making out with Richie in Ben and Bev’s kitchen” felt very, very late.

“Did we even break the wishbone?” Eddie asked, breaking just long enough to breathe the question before he was making out with Richie again.

“Don’t know,” Richie gasped into Eddie’s mouth. He bit at his lower lip and Eddie gasped, spine going kind of… noodly as he collapsed against Richie’s chest. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie and held him there. “Don’t care.”

“Okay,” Eddie agreed, dazedly.

“So, uh…” That was Bill. “Should we…”

“Guess I do get to see them making out on the kitchen island,” Patty pointed out.

“Yeah, and I’ve officially seen enough of it to last a lifetime,” Stan grumbled. “Let’s go.”

Eddie kind of tried to apologize to them, like, a vague noise in the direction of the other Losers, but Richie was still making out with him and Eddie couldn’t find it in himself to break the kiss long enough to say anything resembling words.

By the time they separated again, mostly just to breathe hard like they were 30-year smokers like Bev, the kitchen was empty. Richie stared down at Eddie in wonder, one hand stroking over Eddie’s hair, brushing it back from his temple, behind his ear, like he just couldn’t believe this was real. Eddie was kind of having a hard time wrapping his head around it, too, but for him it was more about the depth of his own feeling, how much he _wanted_ this, wanted _Richie_ (wanted a _guy_), that he couldn’t believe. But he was starting to.

Richie dropped his eyes and glanced down between them. Eddie flushed, assuming Richie was about to make a sex joke. But then Richie took a step back, holding Eddie in place to keep him from following him.

“Uh… I think I stepped on the wishbone.”

Richie dropped down for a half second. When he came back up it was with a palmful of broken wishbone pieces.

“Well.” Eddie stared at the wishbone for a second, then looked up at Richie. “Did you get your wish?”

Richie laughed as he brushed the wishbone bits off his palm into the sink.

“No! I was going to wish everything went back to normal between us! I didn’t fucking… Never in a million years would I have wished for this!”

Eddie felt kind of hurt at that, but then Richie was grabbing him and kissing him softly. Oh, that was okay, then.

“Dude: because I never thought you would _ever_,” Richie explained.

“But it’s okay?” Eddie asked, pretty fucking annoyed at how vulnerable he sounded.

Richie huffed softly, pressing little kisses all over Eddie’s face. Eddie should have hated it. He squirmed like he hated it, but he really didn’t.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were thirteen. In no universe is this not okay.” Richie pulled back to look at Eddie. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Like, what the fuck, dude: when’d you catch gay?”

Eddie really wished Richie hadn’t asked, because fuck, it was _way_ embarrassing to have to admit it was approximately five minutes ago.

“Uh…”

“Was _that_ your problem with Bill? You were jealous?”

“Uh…”

If Eddie started making out with Richie again, he’d probably stop asking questions again, right?

“Holy shit, you divorced your wife for me.”

Sure… that’s how it went…

Eddie was going to have to find Bev and swear her to a blood oath of secrecy about all this.

He had a feeling it wouldn’t work.

“Hey guys?” It was Mike, calling out blindly from the doorway. He waved a hand, rest of his body firmly in the other room. “Is it safe? I just need to duck in to grab some chips. You’re not doing it on the dishwasher, are you?”

Richie immediately swiveled around to grab some kitchen drawers and start slamming them hard, utensils jangling rhythmically.

“Oh, Eddie!” Richie called out. “Right there, yeah! Pound me harder, daddy!”

Eddie stood stock-still where Richie had left him, entire being turning redder than the fires he was going to burn fucking _Richie Tozier_ in before this holiday was over.

Mike stormed in, taking Richie’s antics as the all-clear invitation they were meant to be. Eddie made eye contact with Mike as he turned from the pantry, bag of chips in hand.

_Help me_, Eddie thought at Mike.

_You chose this. You knew what you were getting into_, Mike seemed to reply, with just a quirked lip and raised eyebrow. Then he was gone with a wave, leaving Eddie alone again with Richie, who was standing next to the utensil drawers beaming proudly.

Oh, fuck. He’d _chose_ this.

Richie’s smile softened as he looked at Eddie.

Oh. Fuck.

Eddie had no choice in this whatsoever.

* * *

Richie and Eddie were sharing a bedroom with Bill.

Because of _course they fucking were_.

Bill stood in the doorway that night, hesitating.

“…Do you guys want me to, uh…”

Eddie stared at the ceiling and whistled to himself, not prepared to deal with. That. Everything in that.

Also, he kind of had a semi, from a spontaneous make-out with Richie that had broken out when he’d come in to grab a phone charger brick and Richie had been in the bedroom at the same time doing something on his sticker-covered laptop. So he was trying to will that to deflate a bit, since Bill was just. Standing right there, and all.

“Join us? I don’t know, Bill: I think Eddie’s the jealous type-”

“Shut the fuck up, Richie,” Eddie gritted out, still staring at the ceiling.

Richie sprawled sideways on the queen-sized air mattress him and Eddie were expected to share now that Bill was here. He poked Eddie gently with one sock-clad foot.

“Hey, don’t yell at Bill.”

Eddie was turning to shook him a _look_, mouth already unhinging to go on a tirade of the _bitchiest_ of fest, but Richie rushed forward with a lopsided grin.

“If _you’d_ figured out you were a big fat homo two days ago, we could’ve had a whole night alone on the air mattress together.”

That was… a fucking point, but Richie didn’t have to bring it _up_. Eddie shame-facedly rehinged his jaw, but he still leveled Bill with a _look_ that dared him to say anything about it.

At least his half-chub was mostly gone, now.

Bill nodded at his bag by the couch shoved against the wall. “I was just… I can just. Work. For a bit. Before I get in bed…” Bill kind of edged his way along the wall until he reached his bag. He grabbed his laptop out of it with one hand before shimmying back along the wall. Awkwardly he held the laptop up and sort of… saluted with it. “I’ll work. For an hour. Or two.” His eyes darted between them. “Okay then. Uh…”

And then Bill shut the door, _firmly_, on his way out.

Richie was on him in an instant, pressing Eddie back against the surprisingly decent (but in no way sex-ready) air mattress with his hips and tongue. Eddie moaned, half-tempted to give in, sort of half totally already giving in, as he kissed back and reached up to hold onto Richie’s biceps, and, hello, there was his half-chub, back with a second’s notice. Fuck, it was like being sixteen again, and _fuck_, how did they never do this when they were sixteen? Morons, fucking morons, the both of them. And him more than Richie, _somehow_.

“Wait, wait, Richie,” Eddie gasped, pushing Richie off him with desperately half-hearted enthusiasm. Richie whined, dropping a scattering of little kisses all over Eddie’s lips, leaving Eddie breathless, completely breathless.

Eddie forgot why he had been telling Richie to wait, under the assault.

But then Richie breathed hard, hips grinding down against Eddie’s, and Eddie saw sparks behind his eyelids. Richie dove down to press little nipping kisses to Eddie’s jaw and Eddie shook his head, pushing back at Richie’s biceps again.

Richie had nice biceps. Eddie’s heart pounded as his fingers squeezed at them. Fuck.

“No, Richie, look: we can’t do this here.”

“Why not,” Richie muttered. “Bill gave us the room.” Richie pulled back to look down at Eddie. “I can put a necktie on the door, if it makes you feel better,” he suggested with a wink.

Fuck, that was tempting. And Bill _had_ given them the room…

A loud knock on the door. “Hey guys! Game time. You two decent?” Ben asked through the closed door.

Eddie groaned and flopped back against the air mattress. Richie turned on top of him, shouting at the door over his shoulder: “No, we’re not fucking decent! Eddie’s balls-deep inside me, fuck off!”

“I’m not!” Eddie choked out, brain mostly swimming with the idea of being balls-deep inside Richie Tozier’s ass. He nudged at Richie. “Why’s that so fucking funny, asshole?” he hissed.

Richie turned back to him and frowned. “What? It’s not funny, I really want us to _fucking fuck_, if everyone would just _leave us alone_!” he shouted that bit back at the door. Ben had probably already left, Eddie figured.

“No, I mean the part about me fucking you. Why’s that a fucking joke?”

Richie blinked, looking genuinely surprised. Then his face creased into a grin, and Eddie realized that, somewhere along the way, he had made a huge mistake.

“Eddie. Are you saying you _wouldn’t_ want to tap this ass?”

Good-bye half-chub, hello full hard-on. Man, being in love with Richie was some kind of bullshit.

“Uhh…” was the highest degree of coherency Eddie managed to muster in response to that.

“Unless you’ve got a problem with anal, in which case, hey: BJs all day every day. I’ll be fucking _king_ of BJ mountain, Eddie, that is _not_ a problem for me-”

“No, no-!” Eddie grabbed at Richie and ended up kind of caressing his chest, and stomach. Richie twitched, hips incidentally grinding against Eddie’s. They stared at each other, panting softly, mouths open. Eddie licked his lips. “I… sounds good?”

Richie dove down to kiss Eddie, _hard_, and fuck, yeah, okay, maybe fuck games night, and fuck Bill, here was _fine_, here was _perfect_, on this surprisingly decent air mattress in Ben’s home office-

“Eddie! Stop feeling up Richie, we’ve got a fucking Pictionary tournament to win!” Bev shouted through the door.

Eddie groaned, knocking his forehead into Richie’s shoulder several times. In a surprisingly tender gesture, Richie wrapped a hand around the back of Eddie’s neck and pressed a kiss to his hair. Eddie melted into the mattress even as Richie pushed off him and went for the door.

“Al_right_, Bev, you absolute _cock-block_,” Richie shouted as he flung open the door. Eddie weakly grabbed a pillow to cover up his groin, though the too-loose jeans he was wearing helped a little with that. Bev shook a finger at Eddie.

“You can get your rocks off anytime. But you’re on my team, now.”

Eddie nodded weakly at her. “Okay, okay. A minute?”

Bev snorted at them and twirled a finger. “One minute, Kaspbrak. Richie, leave him alone, come on. You can bum a cigarette off me.”

Richie shot a guilty smile at Eddie. “Just a puff,” he countered. “And one minute, Bev. Look, scout’s honor-” he held up three fingers in a mock boy scout salute.

“Your promises mean nothing, Richie,” Bev snarked. But she met Eddie’s eyes and jabbed a finger at him. “No more monkey business, come on.”

Richie sighed and dropped back down onto the air mattress to Eddie, shooting him baleful eyes. But he didn’t try and fool around anymore, which was probably… yeah. For the best. Even if Eddie’s dick didn’t agree. Eddie sighed and patted at Richie’s thigh.

“Alright. Let me go to the bathroom, splash some water on my face, or something.”

Eddie made to get up, but Richie’s hand was suddenly on his thigh. He grinned, and Eddie knew to fear that grin. He kind of loved it.

“I’ve got an idea.”

* * *

It was late, after dinner, after Losers time and all that. Everyone was settled in for the night—including Bill, in Bev and Ben’s office. AKA the room he was sharing with Eddie and Richie, crammed together on the air mattress. Where they decidedly would not be having sex tonight.

Luckily, Richie had a plan. It wasn’t Eddie’s first choice of plans, but it would have to do.

Eddie recited statistics to himself about how the bathroom was actually the cleanest room in the house because you cleaned it more often than, say, the library. It was the only thing helping him maintain his erection as Richie slammed him into the bathroom sink, tongue down his throat.

“Turn on the shower,” Eddie muttered into Richie’s mouth.

Richie pulled back, looking kiss-drunk.

“You want to have shower sex?”

Eddie laughed, leaning forward to press his forehead against Richie’s shoulder. Holy fuck. Holy fuck, he loved this moron so much.

“No, it’s so they won’t hear us.”

“Literally everyone knows what we’re doing in here,” Richie mumbled into Eddie’s mouth, kissing him hard again. But he did reach over and turn the shower on. Waste of water, but. Eddie _really_ needed to get fucking laid, okay?

“Fuck, how do you-” Eddie’s hands were on Richie’s waist and he was just now being confronted with what they were about to do.

“I’ve got condoms and lube in my toiletries bag under the sink,” Richie told him.

Richie had brought a toiletries bag.

That was the hottest thing Richie had ever said to Eddie.

He literally dropped to his knees right there on the—yuck, yuck—bathroom floor and grabbed for Richie’s pants.

“Oh, _ffff-_” Richie cut himself off by shoving a fist in his mouth. He braced himself against the bathroom sink with his other hand.

“Sorry, I just… need…”

“D-d-on’t… sorry. Not… You don’t… Oh _fuck, Eds_.”

Eddie was just sucking on the head of Richie’s dick, because, as he very abruptly learned, Richie had been telling the _truth_ when they were kids about his enormous hog?? What the fuck? And Eddie hadn’t exactly had a lot of practice sucking cock—exactly none, in fact. But he could backwards-engineer the basics. He spat in his hand twice, smoothing his saliva over the ridiculous long shaft and stroking it wetly. Above him, Richie groaned _way_ too loud for a clandestine rendezvous.

“You want to shut up?” Eddie whispered up at him.

“Eddie Kaspbrak is sucking my cock,” Richie breathed, like _that_ was an answer.

“Eddie Kaspbrak is gonna stop sucking your cock if you can’t shut the fuck up,” Eddie shot back. Which would be a real shame, because—Eddie leaned forward to try taking Richie’s dick in his mouth and bobbing up and down on it. Richie’s hips jerked forward before he steadied himself, one hand coming down to card shakily through Eddie’s hair. Oh, Eddie liked that—turns out, Eddie really liked everything about sucking cock. Richie’s blunted fingernails scratched gently at Eddie’s scalp and Eddie moaned against the thick shaft in his mouth. Richie jerked again, then started tugging gently at Eddie’s hair, pushing him off.

“I can’t, Eds, I’m gonna blow like, immediately if you keep that up.”

“It’s an amateur blowjob,” Eddie protested as he stood up. He wiped his mouth against the back of his hand, but before he could suggest maybe swigging some mouthwash Richie was grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him in for a searing kiss. Eddie grunted, then moaned as Richie fucked his bare, wet dick against Eddie’s stomach. Okay, uh, shit. That was hot.

Eddie just kinda… let Richie hump up against him for a couple minutes, because he was busy dry-humping up against Richie, and Richie’s tongue was in his mouth and Eddie couldn’t think much further than fuck, _fuck_, this felt good, _fuck_, he wanted to come all over Richie’s stupid rumpled t-shirt and make him throw it out afterwards.

But then Richie was grabbing Eddie’s sweatpants and tugging them down, and then turning himself around and bracing himself against the sink. Eddie stared as Richie awkwardly hopped around until he managed to kick his own sweatpants off.

“Okay, okay: fuck me, Eds.”

Dumbly Eddie stepped forward and caressed his hands over Richie’s skinny white ass. He scratched his nails through the dark hair covering it, marveling as Richie shivered and arched into him.

Shaking himself, Eddie met Richie’s eyes in the mirror.

“You sure you want… _me_?”

Richie nodded, panting desperately. “Yeah, yes, Eddie. Please?”

Well fucking shit, he kind of couldn’t believe it now that the moment was here, but Eddie was _not_ going to turn down an invitation to fuck Richie up the ass. Especially if Richie was begging him for it? Richie was _begging _Eddie to fuck his ass??

What exactly was Eddie’s _life_ right now??

He had to shove Richie aside to grab the lube and condoms from under the sink—Richie had a toiletry bag, it was a _nice_ toiletry bag, leather and stuff, had Richie just bought this?—but then Richie was back beneath Eddie’s hands.

And then Eddie had to confront the reality of anal sex.

“Oh, uh…” Eddie winced. He glanced up and met Richie’s eyes in the mirror. “You don’t have… gloves, do you?”

Richie snorted and reached back, flapping his hand around. “Give me the fucking lube you anal mother fucker.”

“_You’re_ the mother-fucker,” Eddie grumbled, but slapped the lube down Richie’s outstretched palm.

“Yeah but _you’re_ the anal-fucker,” Richie shot back. He was leaning against the counter, bracing himself on his left forearm as his right reached back to finger himself open. Eddie stared, transfixed, as Richie smeared lube inside his asshole, sloppy and wet but getting the job done.

“Suit up, Eddie,” Richie told him over his shoulder.

Eddie shook himself out of his Richie Tozier finger-fucking himself induced hypnosis and quickly spread some lube over his dick before rolling the condom on, and then drizzling lube over the condom-clad shaft. He trembled as he took a half step closer to Richie, watching Richie’s hand move between them, wetting himself up for Eddie.

“Fuck, Richie…” Eddie breathed. He reached out with his left hand, rubbed it down Richie’s arm that was bracing against the sink. Richie shivered, mouth falling open in the mirror. Eddie moaned and pressed closer, pressed his nose in Richie’s hair. “_Richie_.”

“_Eddie_,” Richie croaked out, voice broken. Eddie quickly kissed his way around to Richie’s face, to Richie’s mouth, as Richie breathed heavy, panting breaths into him.

“Eddie, Eddie-” Richie’s hand was gone between them. Now it was on Eddie’s hips, pulling him in. Eddie winced at the slick, unwashed fingers gliding over his hip, but the shower was right there, he could shower afterwards.

It wasn’t enough to flag his erection. At _all_.

“Okay, okay. Eddie lined himself up, left hand still stroking up and down Richie’s arm. He didn’t realize he was doing it.

“You tell me if I do this wrong,” Eddie ordered Richie.

“You couldn’t,” Richie promised him.

Eddie widened his eyes and kinda jerked his head to the side, a lot more dubious of his own skill at anal sex than Richie was, apparently.

But then he was guiding himself into Richie, and, oh. It was. It was easy. It felt like-

Eddie moaned and pressed his mouth against Richie’s neck. Fuck, why were they still wearing their shirts?

-it felt _good_, and _tight_, and _easy_, like-

Eddie fucked gently against Richie, building up a pace. Richie was impossibly loud, they were going to hear him at the fucking neighbor’s house, but, fuck. Eddie grunted and hissed against Richie’s neck as he fucked into him harder.

-like he’d been doing this his whole life.

Like he _should_ have been doing this, with Richie, his whole life.

“Fuck,” Eddie whispered against Richie’s neck. “You feel amazing.”

“Eddie, if you don’t kiss me right now, c’mon-”

He shouldn’t make a habit of it, but Eddie was liable to do anything Richie asked right this second, as their hips fucked against each other in Bev and Ben’s guest bathroom. So he grabbed Richie’s chin with his right hand, turning him back. They kissed, and as they did Eddie’s other hand slipped from Richie’s shoulder to his chest, wrapping around Richie and holding him close as their tongues tangled and hips moved in rhythm against each other, over and over and over.

Richie hissed as he broke the kiss, panting harshly. “Touch-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie assured him, reaching down around Richie’s front. “Yeah, I got you, Richie.”

“You got me,” Richie agreed.

“I got you,” Eddie mumbled, pressing trailing kisses along Richie’s neck.

“Fuck, _fuck_,” Richie groaned, hand slamming down once on the countertop. “Fuck, yeah, Eddie, don’t stop-”

“I’m not going to stop,” Eddie assured him. He smiled against Richie’s neck. His hand worked steadily over Richie’s dick, jerking it in slow, smooth movements. Eddie liked doing it from this angle—he was used to it, and it felt natural to him.

“I’ve been waiting.” Richie started, then he shook his head. Choked back a noise in his throat.

“What?” Eddie prompted. He squeezed at Richie’s dick, interrupting the rhythm of his strokes before starting up again, harder, faster. Richie moaned brokenly, fist pounding weakly at the sink.

Eddie held Richie close and fucked into him hard, hips slapping against Richie’s ass. Richie moaned and his hand shot out, bracing himself on the mirror. Eddie squeezed at him, nipped at his ear, until Richie met his eyes in the mirror. His hair was flopping down, sweat-soaked, over his glasses (why was he wearing his glasses? _Because he wanted to see you_. Eddie swallowed down the sentiment and kept it somewhere buried inside him, safe, to be examined later). Eddie squeezed Richie again, eyes locked. “What?”

“Waiting for you,” Richie admitted. In a rush, eyes reddening: “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

Eddie’s thrust slowed, mouth falling open at the force of Richie’s confession. Richie sniffled loudly and humped his hips backwards against Eddie.

“Hey, man! What gives!”

“I’m just… processing…” Eddie said weakly.

“Well process while you fuck me.”

“You’re crying!” Eddie pointed out.

“I can cry and get fucked at the same time,” Richie grumbled. He wiped at his face, knocking his glasses around. “Not like it’d be the first time.”

Eddie wagged a finger disappointedly at Richie. But he started fucking him again.

“We’re gonna talk about that.”

“We’re _so_ not,” Richie snarked back.

“Would you rather we talk about how you’re—Jesus, Richie, you’re _still_ crying!”

“We’re never fucking in front of a mirror again,” Richie moaned. He threw his glasses in the sink so he could cover his eyes with one big palm.

Eddie laughed and hugged Richie tight to him as they fucked.

“I can’t believe I’m so fucking into you.”

“Huge mistake,” Richie agreed wetly. “No going back now.”

Eddie kissed just behind Richie’s ear. Richie sniffed loudly, one hand still over his eyes.

“Nah. Not in a million years,” Eddie agreed.

That wrenched a sob out of Richie. Eddie shushed him, pressing gentle kisses behind his ear as he fucked him relentlessly.

“Fuck, _nggkk_, Eddie…”

“Good?” Eddie asked, because it sure as hell _felt_ good, but what did he know about fucking a guy in the ass? Nothing, before this minute.

“Fuck, yes,” Richie breathed. He slid forward against the counter, fucking himself harder back onto Eddie’s dick. Eddie hissed and grabbed him by the hips, fingers gripping tight as he fucked him harder.

“Oh fuck, Eddie, yeah, right there…” Richie moaned.

Eddie bit his lip, sweat beading on his brow. The room was steamy—oh, right, the fucking shower was still on. Eddie giggled to himself, even as he felt his orgasm building inside him.

“Stop crying,” Eddie chided him. “If I come when you’re crying it’s gonna give me a complex.”

“Afraid of getting into it?” Richie laughed. “Don’t worry, Eds: we’ll get some paddles or something. I’ll learn how to cry on command, if it gets you o- nghk, Eddie, _fuck-_”

“Don’t-” Eddie laughed, burying his face in Richie’s shoulder as his hips stuttered, then picked back up the pace, _slapslapslap_ against Richie’s pale ass. “Don’t make me laugh-”

“Fuck, shit, I’m-”

Richie spilled into Eddie’s hand. Eddie jerked him through it, rubbing wet come over the head even as Richie’s body went tight around him. Eddie fucked harder into him, grinding in an awkward rhythm, so… so close…

A shuddering sob wrenched its way from Richie’s throat, and Eddie looked up just in time to see him wiping fresh tears from his face. Then, un-fucking-fortunately, Eddie’s orgasm crested inside him. He swore, hitting Richie weakly with the side of his fist as his hips pushed, and bottomed out against Richie’s ass. Eddie choked out a weak groan as he slid forward, plastering himself against Richie’s back. Richie reached behind him and grabbed tight, pulling Eddie’s waist even tighter against his ass. Eddie ground against him, wringing the last drops of come from his dick, and watched in the mirror as Richie’s mouth fell open, eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows drawn together in an expression that was equal part pained and ecstatic.

“You fucking asshole,” Eddie whispered.

“More like you-fucked-_my_-asshole,” Richie countered back weakly.

“Stop _crying_,” Eddie moaned, rubbing his face against Richie’s shoulders.

“I’m fucking… I’m done, I swear-”

“Gonna develop a fucking complex,” Eddie complained. He pulled himself out, gently, holding onto the base of the condom as he did. He tapped Richie’s shoulder and pointed at the Kleenex, which Richie passed back after taking two for himself. While Eddie wrapped up the condom before tossing it into the trash, Richie turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face, glasses tossed out of the sink onto the counter. Eddie let him mop his face dry with a facecloth, but as soon as Richie tossed it down he wrapped a hand around his bicep and pulled him in for a wet, sloppy kiss.

When they broke apart Richie looked dazed but happy as he peered blearily down at Eddie.

“Yeah?” Richie said, like that meant anything.

Eddie laughed and kissed him again. Then he poked him in the chest with a finger.

“For the record, _I’m_ the one your act should be about. Not fucking _Bill_.”

Richie blinked three times then started laughing so hard Eddie had to shush him, slapping both hands over his mouth. Richie kept smiling at him, with his eyes, over Eddie’s palms. Eddie glared at him but of course he couldn’t put any real heat behind it.

When Eddie finally dropped his hands Richie loudly whispered: “Is that why you just fucked my brains out? To get into my act? Because Eddie, beautiful: I would’ve settled for a handie under the table.”

“You’re gross. You’re an asshole.”

Richie swept down to start peppering Eddie with kisses.

“You’re a gross asshole,” Eddie protested not at all.

They shut the shower and redressed into their PJs before creeping back to their room. Richie hung back just over Eddie’s shoulder, and he kept touching him, just little fingertips of reassurance that he was still there, that Eddie was still there, that they were both here together, creeping through Bev and Ben’s home, where the rest of the Losers slept soundly with dreams of sugar plums and all that whatnot.

* * *

The plates were cleared up, the coffee had been poured, and now it was time for desserts. Eddie stood in the garage, staring in the second fridge where he’d put his dessert days ago when he arrived.

He hadn’t fucking thought about it. He hadn’t thought anything of it. It was just… It was the one thing he basically knew how to bake, it was something his mom had made every year.

Eddie tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling of the garage, swearing to every god that might be listening.

Shame-facedly Eddie picked up his dessert stand and walked slowly into the house with it. He walked through the kitchen, into the dining room, his offering moving slightly with every step. He sat it down on the table and slid in next to Richie, not saying a word, not looking at him. Like maybe Richie wouldn’t make the connection. Like maybe Richie wouldn’t jump on the lowest-hanging fruit any comedian could hope for-

“Hey, Eds?”

Eddie sat up straight and smiled blandly, like nothing at all was going on. “Yeah, Richie?”

Of course Richie had noticed. Of course he’d clocked it. Eddie stared into Richie’s eyes and Richie stared into Eddie’s and that’s it, there it was. Richie couldn’t stay silent about this. The universe might implode.

“That’s a, uh… So.”

“Need some more coffee?” Eddie asked, bland as can be.

Ben was cutting the cakes and pies, grabbing people’s plates to serve them whatever assortment of desserts they wanted. He nodded at Richie. “Hand me your plate? What do you want?”

Richie drew in a breath. Eddie slid down in his chair.

“_I need a slice of Eddie’s fruitcake!_”

Eddie sighed and stared at the ceiling. Crown molding. That was nice.

Richie breathed hard, grabbing the table.

“You _didn’t know_.”

Eddie gritted his teeth.

“You _didn’t know_, and you _brought a fruit cake_.”

Eddie stared at the fruitcake.

The fucking fruitcake had been staring him in this face the whole damn time.

But then Richie grabbed Eddie and pulled him into a headlock, pressing a kiss to his hair. And even though Eddie jerked away, embarrassed and complaining, he might have dropped a hand under the table and pressed it to Richie’s thigh. And might have reached down to take Eddie’s hand in his own, smiling over beatifically.

Eddie was going to find a new therapist as soon as he was back in New York, because what the hell, man. Pretty big thing to miss.

At least he wasn’t a homophobe?

* * *

_“Hey. Hey, Eddie. Hey.”_

_“What?”_

_“_You’re_ my present, this year.”_

_“That’s it. We’re broken up.”_

_“No, wait, Eds-!”_


End file.
